Back in July GoPro announced a way for you to get paid for the videos you shoot via a licensing portal, but now it’s upping the ante. With GoPro Awards, an ongoing contest pays you for the photos and videos you shoot. $500 for a photo, $1,000 for a raw video clip, and $5,000 for a video edit. Not bad.

Generally this kind of thing creeps me out because there are a lot of contests that basically steal people’s photos/videos in exchange for peanuts, so I asked GoPro about the fine print and surprisingly it’s not too bad. Here’s what they said:

“We receive the global non exclusive distribution and monetization rights to the content in perpetuity with the ability to edit,” GoPro’s rep told me. “In English this means they can still do whatever they want with the content but we can use the content for anything GoPro related and we will pay them accordingly.”

I asked if the prize money was instead of the licensing fees entrants would get if GoPro just bought the photo/video outright. They clarified that it’s “IN ADDITION TO. We will pay them the reward for their submission and then if we use their content for other marketing purposes down the road involving some kind of monetization or licensing fee, the individual would get that money additionally and separate from the award.”

Solid.

To enter, you upload your photo/video to gopro.com/awards and hope for the best. You can still upload it to your own YouTube channel, Instagram, or what have you, because it’s non-exclusive. They’re not just looking for death defying stuff, either. Categories include: Action, Adventure, Animals, Family, Sports, Motorsports, Music, Science + How-To, and Travel. They’ve allocated $5 million a year for these prizes.

Advertisement

Basically, the takeaway here is that GoPro has a lot of cash to throw around. It already basically has the best advertising because its own cameras create the adds, and it has millions of people already using these cameras to do awesome shit.